The situation with remdesivir is very, very interesting, because it’s the first treatment to have been approved by the FDA for use against COVID-19. I think everyone agrees that it’s not a miracle treatment. The medical consensus is that it’s a great first treatment. It’s by no means the last. And we’ll see more coming out as clinical trials conclude.
Remdesivir is owned by Gilead. And I was stunned to hear Daniel O’Day, the CEO, repeat, on your show, that he will do his best to make Gilead available to everyone around the world and that he had donated a large number of treatments to the United States, because Gilead’s track record in delivering access to medicines, not just in the United States, but elsewhere, has been horrible.
The Trump administration is actually, coincidentally, suing Gilead for the unauthorized use of U.S. government patents from the CDC that are used in a drug that Gilead calls Truvada. Truvada is PrEP. It’s what many sexually active gay men can take as a preventive measure against HIV and AIDS. The drug costs $25 a month to take in India. And the price in the United States is $1,800, which obviously
— source democracynow.org | May 07, 2020